A Father Without A Son
by staceycj
Summary: Post 5X22. Every fiber of Dean's being was dedicated to raising Sam. Now Sam is gone, but that drive is still there.
1. Chapter 1

Once a hunter, always a hunter. It didn't matter that Dean was now living in some suburban neighborhood in the middle of the heart land, didn't matter that the apocalypse was over thanks to his brother's death, none of it mattered, Dean was a hunter, and it was so ingrained in his being, so much a part of him, that no matter what promise he made to his brother, his senses would always be on the alert, and truth be told, if a hunt presented itself, Dean would go. He would justify himself, say that he didn't want it to hurt the little surrogate family he had adopted, that if he hunted and killed the son of a bitch he would be protecting his family. And if Dean's senses were acute enough for that, they were more than attuned to hear a teenage boy open and close the front door softly, try to walk down the driveway undetected. But even if Dean didn't have senses that could detect the slightest disturbance of the air, he would have seen the boy's worn chucks from his position underneath Lisa's car.

"What's up Ben?" Dean asked as he loosened the oil pan. Dean saw the shoes shuffle, slightly startled by Dean's sudden voice.

"How did you know?"

"I'm trained to hear a ghost. I think I can hear you open and close the front door." Dean reminded and continued his efforts to change the oil in Lisa's car.

"Oh." Ben said softly.

"What's the matter?"

"Do you have a free minute?" he asked. Dean was suddenly reminded of Sam all of those years ago, asking the same thing, while Dean's head was stuck under the Impala, doing the same thing. Sam always wanted to talk, or to ask for help, or something, when Dean was busy, when his head was so far under the car, he couldn't get up quickly enough to look Sam in the eye. The memory of the floppy haired boy made Dean's chest ache. He tried to swallow the ache away, and then he remembered that the ache never went away.

"What do you need?" he asked, trying to focus on Ben, trying to remember that Ben was the teenager in front of him, that it was 2010 and Sam was dead, that he was grown up, became Lucifer's vessel, and saved the world from the apocalypse. Dean sighed inwardly. It always sounded so easy.

"Ummm." Ben sighed and shuffled his feet. Dean finally got the pan undone and rolled out from underneath the car. Ben was standing beside it, holding a paper in front of him, looking down, and looking shamed. He held out the paper to Dean.

Dean wiped his hands on the cloth that was sitting on the hood of the car and then took the paper from the boy. It was a social studies paper with a big fat F on the top.

"Dude….what happened?"

"Don't' tell mom."

"Ben, your mom should know about this stuff."

"I can't show her. I can't let her know that I'm failing social studies."

"Ben, I can't keep something like this from your mom."

"Why not?"

"Because she's your mom."

"But…"

"But nothing. If I weren't here…"

"I wouldn't tell her even then." He said in defiance, chin up and eyes determined. Brown eyes melted into hazel, and Dean closed his trying to get his Sammy out of his mind. "If you weren't here, I wouldn't ask anyone for help. I would just fail."

Dean's brows creased and he looked at Ben carefully, trying to figure out what the kid wanted from him, and he realized with a moment of clarity followed by astonishment, that Ben wanted his help with homework.

"Ben, I don't know if you want my help with anything."

"Why not?"

Dean licked his lips. "I'm not exactly what you would call bright."

"You're smart. I've watched you figure stuff out that no one else can figure out." Ben said.

"I'm ghost smart, I'm street smart, but I'm not book smart." Dean focused on wiping the oil off of his hands for a second before adding, "I didn't graduate high school." Dean said with no pride, no bravado, no popped collar coolness, just simple regret and sadness.

"Why not?"

"Not a lot of time for that kind of thing when you are hunting monsters."

"But Sam…" Ben stopped himself remembering that his mother told him not to talk about Sam to Dean, because that hurt him, it made him sad, and they didn't want to make Dean sad while he stayed with them. Both had the unspoken fear that if they shook Dean too hard, he would get in his big black beast and never be seen again. And both had grown fond of him being with them all of the time and neither wanted him to leave.

Dean smiled a little remembering. "Yeah, he graduated valedictorian. He went to Stanford. My little brother was smart." Dean said with pride that should only be reserved for fathers.

"But, then, you had to have helped him with homework."

Dean thought back a little and remembered quizzing Sam on the finer points of everything, often when he was laid up, or when he was cleaning their dump of an apartment, or fixing a dollar store meal for the two of them. "Yeah I guess I did, but…"

"Then could you do that for me…please? I need to pass history, and my teacher told me that I could study and retake this test next Monday before school, and I was hoping that you could help me study, and then take me to school early, and you know, not tell mom, because I don't want her to be disappointed in me." Ben looked up at Dean through thick lashes, and he looked so much like Sam, and the memories of helping Sam were flooding over him like a hurricane on a tropical coast, and he felt so overwhelmed that all he could do was nod. Ben smiled.

Dean took a second and got control over his emotions, ran the back of his hand over his eyes, and nodded again. "Yeah, yeah. I'll help you."

"You won't tell mom?"

"No. I won't tell your mom." Ben smiled brightly, that same smile that Sam would get when Dean bought him his favorite food, or when he took him to see the movie he wanted, and Dean's heart swelled with emotion, nostalgia, and sadness. Ben didn't see any of it. He simply ran back into the house, happy and no longer worried. Sam used to be like that. Demons and Lucifer took that away. The sadness sizzled away by the hot burn of anger.

SNSNSNSN

Lisa found Dean later that evening, when she got home from her night out with the girls, on the couch with Ben's social studies book on his chest. She quietly put her keys on the table, remembering just how lightly Dean slept, remembering the knife that had been at her throat one night when she woke him when he had fallen asleep on the couch, and how wild eyed and strange he had been, and then how terribly apologetic, and how he refused to sleep with her anymore because of that incident, and she quietly went about putting her keys down and her purse, and she tip toed to Dean, and she noted that he was sleeping heavier than normal.

She bravely took the book off of his chest, and as she did a paper fell out. She put the book on the coffee table and leaned over and picked up the paper, it was a test that Ben had flunked. She looked down at the open book on the coffee table and realized that Dean was reading the chapter that went to the test. Knowing Ben, he had asked that Dean not tell her about the test. Ben was hard on himself when it came to grades and he didn't like to ask for help. He had asked her only a handful of times since starting kindergarten for help. That he asked Dean was remarkable, amazing even. Her heart warmed, and she thought, not for the first time, that this must be what it would be like for Ben to have a father. She pulled the blanket off of the chair beside the couch and spread it over Dean, and went to bed.


	2. Chapter 2

Baseball was the national pastime for all boys of a certain age and for some men who never quite completely grew out of their boyhood loves. Dean loved baseball, loved playing it, loved watching it, loved listening to it, just loved the game. When he was young, he had wanted to go to games with his dad, wanted the three of them to go to a game and just sit and enjoy it, and not be a family destroyed, a family on the hunt for a supernatural killer who destroyed their family with a single fire. When he was young he imagined that when you went to a baseball game everything stopped, and it was only the game, only that moment, and everything else would be fine.

They had never gone.

His dad took his half brother to games.

But Dean still loved the game.

Ben found Dean sitting on the hood of his car, the sun going down, a beer in his hand and his car radio tuned to a baseball game.

"Whacha doin'?" Ben asked tentatively as he approached Dean.

"Listening to the game."

Ben came a little closer, brows furrowed in confusion. "You can go inside and watch it on television, you can DVR it."

"That's no fun."

"You can see it."

Dean shrugged. "Baseball is just something that is cooler to listen to than to watch."

Ben slowly climbed up onto the hood of the car and mirrored Dean's posture, and each listened to the game.

"Who's your team?" Dean asked.

"I don't have one."

Dean gave the boy an incredulous look. "What do you mean you don't have one?"

Ben shrugged. "I don't like baseball."

"How can you not like baseball? You play.."

"Mom made me play. Something about me needing to get out there and do something physical."

"I would have loved to be able to play on a team." Dean said wistfully.

"You didn't?"

"No."

"Why not? Didn't your parents let you?"

"We didn't get to stay at one school very long. I didn't ever get a chance to try out. I would play a little with Sam, but he didn't like the game, he liked basketball, he was good at it, I guess when you are 6'4 basketball comes a little easier than baseball, but he'd play with me, I always enjoyed that."

"How many schools did you go to?"

"Total?"

"Yeah."

"I lost count after 25."

"God!"

Dean nodded and took another swig of beer. "We went to quite a few."

"Why?"

"Because we were hunting. Because the things we hunted were all over the country."

"Why did you guys have to do it?"

"I asked myself that a lot. Sam asked it more." Dean gave a small smile. "Sam more often than I can remember. He hated it. But Dad and I guess me too, we drug him all over the country and forced him to learn how to hunt monsters when he would rather play soccer or play basketball, or try out for the school play, or study for a test." Dean licked his lips. "We really weren't very good to him."

"Did you have friends?"

"No. Just Sam. Sam was my best friend."

Ben looked down at his hands and picked at a hangnail. They both lapsed into silence and just let the sounds of the game over the Impala's impeccable radio and soaked in the sounds of the crowd going wild over a home run and the crowd booing an unpopular player, and the announcer's perfect voice giving a play by play of the game at hand.

When the game ended and the scores were announced, Dean got off of the car and reached inside the driver's side and turned off the radio. "It's over?" Ben asked. He hadn't noticed that evening and bled into night.

"Yup. Reds won."

"When is the next game?" Ben asked.

Dean shrugged. "I've never really followed the schedule, just turned on the radio and checked, I don't know."

Ben looked at the car and then back to Dean and watched Dean and really hoped that they would do this more often. All of his life he had wanted a dad, and now here Dean was, plunked down in the middle of their family because he had made a promise to Sam, and Ben got to have someone who was like a dad for the first time in his life. And he liked spending time with Dean, and he actually liked listening to the game. It was neat having to imagine the plays, and the hits and the crowd while they listened. Maybe television and the internet wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

"Will you come and get me next time?" Ben asked tentatively.

Dean hid a smile and said, "Sure." He took a sip of the beer and said, "I thought you didn't like baseball?"

It was Ben's turn to shrug. Dean gave a small smile. "Go on in. Tell your mom that I'll be there in a minute." Ben nodded and ran inside. Dean opened the car door and sat in the driver's seat for a minute, looking at the radio and he couldn't help think of Sam at Ben's age, proclaiming his dislike for the sport, simply because Dean liked it, it was one of Sam's more mild rebellions, but then little by little finding his way to be around Dean when he would have the radio on, tuned to the game.

Ben sitting there with him tonight, as the sun fell over the horizon and shrouded them first in brilliant colors and then plunging them into darkness lit only by the stars had afforded Dean the opportunity to pretend that he was Sam, if only for a moment, and now that the moment was over, his heart hurt a little more and a little less.

Dean brushed the thought out of his mind, rolled the windows up, locked the doors and followed Ben inside, the magic of the baseball game creeping away and leaving Dean just a little bit lonelier than it found him.


	3. Chapter 3

Ben came to Dean not long after that with a schedule of the baseball games, and they spent quite a few summer evenings sitting on the hood of the Impala listening to the games, and Dean enjoyed it, it allowed him to pretend that Sam was with him for just a moment, and it seemed to give Ben something that he needed.

Lisa had commented that spending the evenings with Dean had changed Ben in a way that she couldn't describe. Then she had smiled and kissed him in her shy school girl way that always made Dean smile. She was excited that Ben was changing because of him, was happy that her son found an adult male who he could connect with and learn from. And because of that, he tried to remind himself that the boy next to him wasn't Sam, that it wasn't years ago when they were both young and the apocalypse hadn't destroyed them, he tried to remember that it was 2010 and Ben was sitting next to him, and he was a living breathing child that needed him in a different way. And Dean had to be there for the kid in that way, he couldn't let Sam overwhelm him. He knew that. But there were moments where it happened anyway.

They were having one of those nights, the sky was clear, the game was on, and Ben and Dean were on the hood, and for that moment everything was perfect. The game ended, Ben's team won, and Dean sighed, got off the hood and got inside the car to turn off the radio, and then Sam's door opened and shut, Dean's head shot up and saw Ben in Sam's seat.

Immediate rage settled in, that was Sam's seat. No one was allowed in that seat but Sam. It was a violation of his brother, that was their house, and that was Sam's bedroom. This wasn't like the hood of the car, anyone could touch or see the hood, it didn't matter who sat there, or was thrown there, or who bled there. But the passenger's seat was his brother's it was the last place they had talked together. It was the last place Sam cracked a joke. It was his room, it was his place. Ben shouldn't be there.

Ben was talking and he should be hearing it, but all he could hear was the rush of angry blood flowing through his ears, and he closed his eyes and tried to blink back the rage enough to not explode at Ben, to not tell him to get the hell out of his brother's seat, to not make the kid feel like he wasn't liked or wanted.

"Dean?" Ben asked gently and the gentleness of the voice was what got through Dean's anger and into his brain.

"Huh?" Dean asked as calmly as possible.

"Did you hear me?"

"No. Sorry. I didn't. I was…"

Dean didn't have an explanation and Ben didn't seem to need one, he simply went right ahead and talked. "Will you teach me how to hunt ghosts?"

Dean felt his face go pale, felt all of the blood run from his face and into his feet. "No." Dean said quickly and sharply. "No."

"Why not?"

"You are too young."

"But you said that you were hunting by my age." Ben said confused.

"Doesn't mean I was old enough, it means that my dad needed a soldier and I fit the bill. Come on. Let's go inside."

Ben wasn't willing to budge. There were moments when Dean questioned the validity of the blood test Lisa had had done on Ben when he was a baby. Especially when Ben got stuck on an idea and was too stubborn to get off of it—like now.

"But, doesn't the world need hunters?"

"The world doesn't need you as a hunter."

Ben was offended by the response, and in the lack of light he was unable to see the rage that had reduced itself to an intense anger regarding Ben's violation of Sam's seat on Dean's face and he continued. "What? I'm not good enough or something? You could make me good enough if you really wanted."

"I don't want to make you good enough. I don't want you in that world." Dean said more definitively and with heat.

"You let Sam become a hunter." And that statement was the straw that broke Dean's back.

"No. I didn't let my brother become a hunter. I didn't have a freaking choice! My dad made him. I didn't want him in the life, my brother didn't want in the life. I didn't want Sam to ever find out what happened when the lights went out. I had to tell my little brother that he wasn't safe out in the world, and I was too small, too weak to do anything to protect him against it. We had to rely on a father who was never there to protect us from the things that went bump in the night or we had to learn and become what he was in order for us to stay alive. No. I did not let my brother become a hunter. I did not WANT my brother to lose that innocence, to lose all hope of a better life. I didn't want my brother's last breath in life to be falling into hell with Lucifer riding on his back. I didn't want any of that for him. No. I didn't want it for him, but I couldn't' do anything about it then, but I can do something about you. And I will NOT let you become a hunter. I will not let you do that to your mother. No. No."

Shamed, Ben looked down at his hands, and mumbled. "Sorry." Dean caught his breath, his panic and anger subsiding a little. He took a deep breath and let it go.

"It's okay. I'm sorry, I shouldn't…"

"I forgot, you know, about, how, Sam…."

"No chick flick moments." He said out of habit and stopped. The last time he said that was when he went and got Sam from Stanford. Dean swallowed. "Come on kid, let's go inside." The two got out of the car and went up the drive and into the house and Dean was able to keep it together for a little while, long enough for Ben and Lisa to go to bed, and then he slipped out into the night and into the car. He put his hand on his little brother's side of the car and put his head on the steering wheel and tried to catch his breath, tried to remember his brother, his smile, his too long hair, his voice, his words, his everything. But the only thing he could hear Sam say was that he wanted Dean to live with Lisa and Ben, wanted him to be happy, wanted him to have a normal family, and then making him promise. Dean's shoulders fell and he pulled his hand from the seat and put it to rest in his lap. The seat was cold. His brother was gone. And Dean felt like half of him was missing. Losing his brother, was worse than dying.


	4. Chapter 4

School supply shopping wasn't something Dean had done in years, and he was only doing it now at the request of Lisa who was swamped with business right now and couldn't take Ben out. School was starting in five days, and the whole house seemed to be shifting into gear.

When Dean was young school had always been an inconvenience, never something that was prepared for, it was something that took time out of a hunt, forced Sam and Dean to be by themselves for extended periods of time while John was out on a hunt.

But for Ben and Lisa it seemed to be something that they both looked forward to and dreaded and began preparing for weeks in advance. This living with people, normal people, was taking a lot to get used to and he was afraid that he never would.

Ben and Dean found themselves in the school supply isle at Target, list in Dean's hand, and Ben equipped with little hands eager to touch and grab for things on the shelf.

"Well, you need pencils." Dean said and looked around for pencils. He found the yellow #2 pencils and picked them up. Those were the ones he always bought for Sam, the ones that were generic and cheep, and the ones that Sam would be forced to use until there was nothing left except a small nub too small to sharpen by a pencil sharpener, and Dean would have to sharpen gently with his pocket knife. Dean felt the wad of cash in his pocket. He made money now, he had enough for the more expensive kinds, he could afford whatever Ben wanted. He didn't have to have the cheep yellow #2s he could have anything he wanted.

"You want these?" Dean asked holding up the pack of pencils that had served his baby brother.

"I like the mechanical ones. They last longer." Dean nodded.

"Pick out the ones that you want." Ben picked up a pack and handed it to Dean, and he surreptitiously glanced at the price, 10 dollars for a pack of twelve. Sam had wanted these in high school, but there was never money. He picked up an additional pack and threw it into the cart. Ben was going to get the best money could buy. He wasn't going to be forced to tape something together and hope that it lasted. Ben would be prepared, he would be stylish, he would have what he wanted in addition to the bare necessities. And with that resolution, Dean did some seriously hard core school supply shopping.

Lisa was surprised when she arrived home and Dean and Ben weren't. Dean called her right before they left for the store, Dean insisted on letting her know exactly where he was taking her son, and she hadn't heard from them since. It was almost 6, they couldn't have spent the last six hours school supply shopping. God knew that it was one part of the getting ready for school process that she hated, and had learned over the years how to make it as quick and painless as possible.

Worried, she dug in her purse for her cell phone and dialed Dean's number. "Hey." Came his smooth sexy voice.

"Where are you guys?"

"We are on our way home now. Actually just about to turn onto the street now."

"Kay." They both hung up and true to his word she heard his car pull into the driveway, and after some rustling and talking and doors closing the two entered the house laden with bags. Her eyes widened.

"What is all of this?" she asked and gestured to the multitude of bags now littering the kitchen table.

"The school supplies he needed." Dean said. Lisa walked to the table and started picking through the bags, pulling out one subject notebooks that had "Five Star First Gear" emblazoned on the plastic cover, and pens that had brand names on them. "Then I took him to get some school clothes."

"Dean…what…he doesn't need all of this." She said beginning to calculate the money this must have cost, and it was in the hundreds surly.

"We got everything on the list."

"And then some." She mumbled as she pulled out a Jansport backpack. Her brows furrowed, she and Ben had agreed that he would continue to use the backpack that she had bought in the middle of last year, because it still had some good wear in it. Then she saw the clothes, they were from the mall, and they were things that Lisa had told him were too expensive to buy, that he would have to make do with the department store things that they picked up earlier in the month. She was going to have to talk to Dean about this. They were going to have to take some of this back, and she was going to have to be the bad guy.

SNSNSNSN

Ben was up in his room playing video games and Lisa and Dean were in the kitchen cleaning up after supper. She sighed, handed him a dish and decided to begin the conversation that she really didn't want to have.

"Dean. We have to take back some of that stuff."

"Why?"

"I can't afford it."

"It's on me. No big deal." He shrugged and put the plate away.

"It is a big deal. I told him that he couldn't have all of that stuff. He can't just get whatever he wants."

"Why not?"

"Dean…" She sighed and turned to him. "Money doesn't buy love."

Dean's eyes turned confused and hurt. "Are you accusing me of trying to buy Ben's love?" Lisa simply raised an eyebrow in questioning. "I can't believe you. Whatever. Fine. But I'm not taking it back. You aren't either. He deserves those things. You can think whatever you want, but damn Lis, we've been living together for four months now, and you don't know me better than that by now?" He threw the dish towel down and stalked out of the kitchen and outside.

She held onto the counter with both hands and leaned in sighed. She hit the counter with her palms and then went after Dean.

"Dean, we aren't doing this. We talk about things around here."

"Yeah, we do everything your way. We do everything the "normal" way. And everything about me gets swept under the rug. My car isn't something we can drive around, I need to dress more like an adult, I can't buy Ben things that he wants. Do you want anything about me?" 

"Dean….come on. I didn't say any of those things. I just…"

"Want me to be the man you want, and not who I am."

"I never asked you to be someone different."

"Whatever."

"Dean." She said and put her hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off. "Dean." She tried again. He didn't answer; he just went back to tinkering with the toy of Ben's that had broken the other day. She took a breath and held it, and turned and went back inside.

She didn't see hide nor hair of him the rest of the evening, and Ben had to go out to the garage to say goodnight to him. She only heard Dean come into the room after the lights were out and she was cuddled deep into the covers. He sat down on his side of the bed. She wondered if he was just going to sit there or actually go to bed when he started to speak.

"I bought Ben whatever he wanted because it was something I always wanted to do for Sammy." There were tears in his voice, but she was sure they weren't on his face. Dean hadn't cried since the first night he showed up at her door. "Sammy loved school, and I watched him look at all of those cool school supplies with a hunger. He wanted them, but he knew better than to ask for them, because he knew we couldn't afford them, and he knew that I would buy them for him if he asked, and I would do without something…food, clothes something. So he never asked. But I wanted to give him that kind of stuff. I wanted him to be able to have the cool pens, or pencils, or a new book bag that I didn't have to repair before the school year started, or one like the other kids." Dean paused. Lisa sat up and starred at his bent shoulders.

"He was my responsibility and I felt like I let him down in so many different ways. And with Ben it feels like it is a chance to do things right. A way to make up for all of the things I couldn't provide or give to my little brother." Dean's voice hitched. "And it's too late now. He's gone. I can't make it right with him. But I want to make it right by Ben."

Lisa nodded. "Okay." Her voice softer than she wanted. "Okay. Just this time though Dean. Next time, you check with me. You aren't a single parent anymore. You have to bounce it off of me." Dean froze. She was right. All of those years he had acted like a single parent for Sam. He had never noticed, but she was right. And it made it all worse. If Sam was his child then he should have treated him better, mocked him less, encouraged more, been happier when he went to Stanford, and less inclined to pull him from the life, and no parent would have allowed their child to be possessed by the devil himself and die, Ellen hadn't let Joe die alone, but he had allowed Sam to die and he remained standing. What a craptastic parent he had turned out to be.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean jumped. His heart raced. His fight or flight response sounded. And all because his cell phone, clipped to his belt, vibrated. It wasn't often that his phone went off while he was on the job, and the startle gave way to worry. Lisa never called unless it was an emergency, and Ben was supposed to have his phone turned off at school, and it wasn't like it was Sam calling him to tell him to come and get him. Dean licked his lips and shook the last thought out of his head. He put the tool he was using down and pulled the phone from his belt. It was a number that he didn't recognize. Back in the days when he was hunting that wouldn't have meant jack to him. It would have simply meant that it was one of his contacts who had had to switch phones or it was a former "client" that knew someone who knew someone who had an issue, his kind of issue, but now….a number he didn't know worried him.

He answered the phone just before the last ring. "Hello?" he said as he walked away from the noise with one hand pressed up to the unoccupied ear.

"Mr. Dean Singer?" The pleasant sounding woman on the other end responded. In light of coming to live with Ben and Lisa, Dean had acquired, as his last act as an outlaw and a hunter, a fake ID, social security number, and all other important materials that made him a "legit" citizen of the United States, and he decided that if he couldn't be a Winchester any longer he could be the next best thing…a Singer.

"Yes this is he?" he responded.

"This is Emily Hunt at Common Middle School." A surge of panic raced through Dean's stomach.

"Yes?"

"Ben is in the clinic throwing up, and we couldn't reach his mother,"

"She's at a conference," he sated. In the time since he had "been" with Lisa she had given up Yoga instructing for a more practical, more common job, a bank teller…working towards manager, a lot had changed for both of them since they had first met.

"You are next on his emergency contact list, could you please come and get him?"

"I'll be right there."

"Thank you."

"Thank you." Dean responded and put his phone back on its clip and rushed to clean up his small area.

"Ron, I'm headed out," Dean yelled to the foreman of the site. "My kid is sick and he needs to be picked up."

Ron smiled and waved him off. He hurried to the truck, hurried to the elementary school, and hurried to the main office. The pleasant secretary that had called him was at her desk and she smiled. "Mr. Singer?" Dean nodded. "Right this way," She stood and indicated for him to come to one of the little rooms off of the main office. Once inside he saw Ben, looking a little green around the gills and the smell of sick wafted off of him.

"Hey Buddy, you ready to go home?" Dean asked as he knelt into a crouch beside the sick child.

"Yeah." He mumbled and nodded. Dean helped the kid off of the bed, signed the necessary paperwork to release the kid, and took him to the truck, and got him settled in, Dean's jacket draped over Ben's lap, to keep him warm on the chilly November day.

"We'll get you home and put some 7Up into your stomach."

Ben warily turned to Dean and did his best to give him a confused expression. "7Up?" he asked.

"What? What does your mom use?"

"Soda water."

"Eh that's for sissies." Dean smiled. "7Up is what takes care of a man's stomach. It's what I always gave Sam growing up. He'd get sick like this, and that always calmed his stomach." Ben gave a small smile. He always liked hearing stories about Sam. He liked learning about Dean's past and he very rarely shared any stories from the past with Ben, so it was a small treat to get that little piece of information. But the satisfaction of getting to know Dean a little better was overshadowed by the bile that was creeping up his throat and threatening to spill whatever was left in his stomach all over Dean's truck.

Dean sensed what was about to happen and pulled over. Sam had thrown up so much in the last couple of years that Dean could spot the signs of pre-vomit a mile ahead of time. And true to form, Ben opened the door of the truck and threw up whatever was left on his stomach onto the side of the road. Dean rubbed circles on the kids back until the vomiting stopped.

"You okay there buddy?" Ben nodded and wiped a hand across the back of his mouth as he pulled the door shut.

They drove along, Dean driving as slowly as he was able, went through a drive through and got a 2 liter of 7Up and went back to the house.

"Go change your clothes, those are smelly." Dean said as he put his keys on the counter. "When you're done come back here and we'll get you settled on the couch, with a movie and something to drink." Ben nodded and did as instructed. Dean kicked off his boots and prepared the couch for the day, and just as Ben was coming back down Dean was pouring a glass of the fuzzy liquid. "Go get settled." Dean said and followed Ben to the couch, helped Ben into the nest of covers and blankets that Dean had prepared for him, and then hit play on the DVD player and joined the child on the other end of the couch.

"Feelin' any better?" Dean asked. Ben shook his head, and settled deeper into the pillows and blankets. Dean watched the boy struggle to get comfortable. It was just like Sam when he was that age. Trying desperately to get into a position where his stomach would settle, and quit protesting, so he could get some sleep. Then Dean remembered what helped Sam get the much needed sleep, Dean would sit just as he was right now, and he would rub Sam's stomach in small soothing circles. Dean tentatively reached out and put his hand on Ben's stomach and when the child didn't protest the touch, he began to make the same soothing circles on the child's abdomen that had soothed Sam all of those years ago. He heard Ben sigh, and Dean knew it would only be a matter of time before the child was asleep.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSN

Dean heard the garage door go up, and knew that Lisa was finally home. She came in through the garage door and he put a finger to his lips and she looked down and saw Ben curled up on his side sleeping.

"What happened?" she asked softly.

"He has the stomach bug. He's been home since a little after 10."

"Why didn't they call me?" she demanded in a whisper.

"They tried, but they couldn't get a hold of you."

"Why didn't YOU call me?" she asked kicking off her heels and going straight to her son and touching his forehead searching for a fever.

"I did call, and text…I guess you never got them." He said.

"I am so buying a new phone tomorrow." She sighed, and began petting the top of her son's brown hair.

"It's all good. I took care of it." He said and slowly got up from the position he had been occupying for the last several hours. "Sammy, had lots of stomach aches growing up, and then when the visions…" He stopped and licked his lips. "I've just dealt with it a lot. He's handled some soup, not much, but a little, and a cracker. I didn't want to push more than that. I didn't think it would be good to push too hard and then have to clean up the mess." Dean smiled. Lisa looked up from the top of her son's head and gave Dean a smile.

"Thank you so much for this." Dean shrugged it off, touched her shoulder and headed away from the two. It was like he could sense they needed time alone together.

She leaned down and kissed Ben's head and his eyes slowly opened and he saw his mother.

"Mom?"

"Hey there kiddo, how are you feeling?"

"Okay. Not great, but better than this morning."

"Well I'm glad."

"Dean came and got me." He said as if she needed a play by play.

"I know he did sweetie."

"He gave me 7Up instead of soda water." Lisa worked her way underneath her son's head and allowed him to rest, pillow and head, on her lap, while she brushed his hair with her fingers.

"Why would he do that? That seems silly." She said.

"Said it worked for Sammy. It did work, for a little bit, then I threw up again. But then he gave me the soda water, and that calmed my stomach."

"Well I guess 7Up only works for Sammy." She said with a small smile.

"Guess so…" Ben said and drifted off to sleep. Lisa looked towards the hallway in which Dean had disappeared and her heart ached a little. He was a man who had lost his son, and was grieving in more ways than she would ever understand, ways that she hoped to God she would never have to understand. She leaned forward and kissed her son and held him close, selfishly hoping to keep the death that haunted Dean away from her own son.


End file.
